


Shelter Us

by quantumoddity



Series: Perc'ildan Modern AU [1]
Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Established Relationship, In between the death of the de Rolos and overthrowing the Briarwoods, M/M, Percy is a mechanic, Sex Worker Vax'ildan
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-01
Updated: 2020-03-01
Packaged: 2021-02-28 01:47:27
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,149
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22975714
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/quantumoddity/pseuds/quantumoddity
Summary: Percy works late one night
Relationships: Percival "Percy" Fredrickstein Von Musel Klossowski de Rolo III/Vax'ildan
Series: Perc'ildan Modern AU [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1651105
Comments: 3
Kudos: 103





	Shelter Us

When he was much younger, just shy of eight, Percy had been forced into piano lessons. 

They hadn’t gone well at all. The sheet music had been agony on his even then failing eyesight, the notion of something he couldn’t be instantly incredible at without effort was an affront and the bitty, discordant skeletons of the half learned songs drove him mad. He’d sat sourly through them for a month before his tutor had, overly graciously, informed his parents that perhaps young Percival didn’t quite have the temperment for the piano. Another instrument, perhaps. 

Other instruments were attempted and dropped just as quickly, each one proving worse than the last until, finally, his father gave up and Percy was allowed to slope back to his bedroom to take apart more household appliances for fun. While his siblings did the traditional family circuit of mastering piano, violin and flute- all the appropriate instruments for young heirs and heiresses- Percy was given a pass, though with a distinct air of disappointed pity. Not that he cared. 

Now, thirteen years later, Percy would think back on that and smile. Mostly while he was underneath a sleek, stunningly expensive piece of automotive engineering, coaxing it back to life with deft fingers, clipping wires and spinning gears in complex patterns that never would have occured to anyone but him. Patient, tireless, dextrous, he would make beautiful things out of almost nothing but broken machines. 

Whenever he did, Percy would remember what his old piano tutor said and he would smile. As it happened, he did have the exact right temperament. It had just taken him a while to find his instrument. 

Everything was just as he liked it. The garage was empty of any life that wasn’t mechanical, shutter down and windows showing nothing but pale streetlight and a night sky more milky blue than black. It was the city’s light pollution that stained it so but Percy didn’t let his mind linger on that. The battered old radio that had been there when he started working here and stubbornly refused to die oozed out tinny sounding classical music. He’d never turn it to that station when the other mechanics were in- he knew they’d take the piss- but it was past ten and no one was here but him so Percy could do as he pleased. 

He straightened, ignoring his spine’s pangs of protest, and took the last gulp of tea from his stained mug before returning it to it’s incredibly precarious perch on the roof of the car with fresh grease prints. Before him was the black, murky inner workings that lurked below the polished chrome outer shell of the Porsche. Well, half of the inner workings. The rest had been stripped out and strewn across the garage floor on an old tarp in an effort to figure out which piece was messing everything else up. 

“You’re just annoying me now,” Percy muttered to the stubbornly still dead engine, folding his arms and regarding it coldly. 

He was lying of course. Being annoyed with such a gorgeous piece of engineering, even one that wouldn’t function, would basically be sacrilege. And having a puzzle to solve, one that only grew more complex and greasy by the hour, was one of Percy’s absolute favourite things. 

But sometimes putting on a stern expression helped get the job done. 

He bent back to work, spine screeching at him again but eventually giving up and filing away the aches to be felt later. He began to hum to himself as he took a spanner to the exhaust pipe to see if he could loosen it and peek inside.

Percy couldn’t say how much time passed between that point and the rapid knock on the garage shutter that rang out and upset his harmony. But as soon as it registered, his whole demeanor changed in the blink of an eye. He bolted upright, eyes hard behind his smudged glasses, hand immediately snapping out with the speed of an uncoiling snake and closing on the handle of the gun he hid at the holster under his arm. Not drawing yet, just holding it. 

Percy had long ago learned to be careful. 

But then he heard the voice, “Freddy, open up, it’s me!”

As quickly as the change had come on, it was gone. Percy grinned and relaxed, going over and unlocking the shutter, rolling it back just enough to let Vax duck under. 

“Evening, babe,” the half elf’s grin was always crooked, like a painting that needed fixing. 

“You’re early,” Percy didn’t sound anything but delighted by that fact as he hooked an arm around Vax’s slim waist and brought him close to give him a brief greeting kiss, “Very early.”

“A client cancelled last minute. Don’t have to work and I still get paid. Win-win,” Vax stole another kiss after the first, clearly in a good mood. 

“Marion didn’t have anything else for you?” Percy let him go, not wanting to get engine grease on Vax’s work clothes. He only had so many and it wasn’t as if they had an infinite supply of dimes for the laundromat. 

“Nope,” Vax shrugged, “Not much call for sex on a Tuesday night, I guess.”

“Their loss,” he assured him, going over to the lopsided stepladder where he and the other mechanics kept their mugs and tea bags, kettle and coffee, “Well, I’ll only be another hour. Drink?”

“Last time you made me a coffee here I found a lug nut in it so no,” Vax said politely, going over and sitting up on the workbench, making the shorts he was wearing ride up a little in a way Percy definitely didn’t miss. 

“And I apologised sincerely for that,” he smiled, letting his eyes linger a little longer before focusing on making his tea. Black with lots of sugar. And he did check the bottom of the mug for any machine parts before filling it. 

Vax gave a whistle, eyeing the car Percy had been half buried in, “I don’t know much about cars and even I think that’s pretty sweet.”

“You know jack shit about cars,” Percy snorted, replacing his empty, dirty mug with the full dirty one. 

Vax chose to ignore that, “Who does it belong to?”

Percy gave him a look, smiling wryly, “Not the person who originally bought it and let’s leave it at that.”

Vax just gave a titter, he knew the nature of ninety per cent of the work Percy did. When you both worked for Babenon Dosal, you quickly learned not to ask where the merchandise was coming from or why the cars needed new paint jobs or fresh mileages or plate replacements where the new plates didn’t match the old ones. Percy simply did his job and, according to his boss, did it better than anyone. 

He was just happy to earn money doing something he enjoyed. 

He pushed his sleeves back up to his elbows where they’d slipped slightly and dove back into the inner workings of the car, still working on loosening the exhaust. It was tougher than he’d anticipated, his muscles soon standing taught, sinews pressing against skin, teeth gritted.

Eventually, with a satisfying screech, it came loose and Percy had another window from which to view the problem. He would have set right to that if he hadn’t heard a wolf whistle from behind him.

He turned a coy grin on Vax, “What?”

The half elf was smiling wolfishly, feet resting on a toolbox so he could lean as far forward as he could, “Nothing…” 

“Do you come here after work just to oogle me?” 

“No, I come to get a lift home but if you’re going to be walking around looking like Marlon Brando from A Streetcar Named Desire, I’m not going to avert my gaze, am I?” Vax smirked. 

“Well, I don’t know if Stanley Kowalski is the ideal partner exactly but…” 

“I didn’t listen to what they were saying, okay, I was just staring at the hot guy in a tight white shirt…”

Percy laughed, in a way only Vax could get out of him at the end of a long day, “Well, drool all you want. One way to pass the time.” 

For a time they settled into comfortable silence, Percy having long since given up on trying to get Vax interested in the mechanics of cars. Vax flicked through his phone, probably catching his sister up on his day; they rarely went a few hours without talking especially since Vax had moved in with him. 

The radio kept playing, cycling through some more songs before landing on one that, within one soft, gentle opening note, had Percy standing straight, looking to the radio with faraway eyes. 

“Freddy?” Vax blinked curiously, “Is everything alright?”

“Yeah…” Percy’s voice was drifting a little, “My mother used to like this song, is all. We’d beg her to get her violin out and play it for us every evening.” 

Vax’s expression had grown soft, Percy so rarely talked about his family, “I didn’t know she played.”

“She was incredible. She could have done it professionally if she’d had a mind to, she loved music… but she loved this song best.” 

It was a soft, sweet tune, stripped back when compared to full orchestral pieces but hearing it took Percy back to being ten, twelve, even fifteen, bare weeks before everything had fallen apart, pretending he was too grown up to listen to his mother’s playing but still lingering in the parlour, busying himself with a book or some circuit diagrams while his mind was as enraptured as the little ones clustered at her feet. He’d never miss Julius and Vesper lingering as well, feigning disinterest about as well as he was. His father wouldn’t even try and hide his attentiveness, pulling a chair up and not taking his eyes off his wife for the whole song, even after what must have been the fiftieth time. 

Even with the distance between them that always existed, pervasive and constant and so damaging in it’s own way, for the duration of their mother’s song the de Rolo’s would feel like a family. 

“You know… I never learned to dance?” Vax says gently, pulling Percy back from the darker parts of his memories. 

Percy looked surprised, “Never? I would have thought Syldor…”

Vax gave a snort and a tight smile that didn’t do enough to hide the deep hurt behind them, “He never wanted us to dance. Would have attracted too many eyes to the half bloods.”

Percy felt an old desire to see what Syldor Vessar would look like with his teeth punched out. 

“Well, fuck him,” he turned to Vax, reaching out and offering him his hands, “I’ll teach you.”

Vax jumped up, watching devotedly as Percy carefully placed his hands, explaining how one went just under the shoulder blade and the other settled lightly in his palm. He nudged one of Vax’s feet gently with his clunky, steel toed work boot, guiding him through a simple waltz step, counting it out rhythmically. He was a very good teacher and within moments all that remained was the song and the lilting rise and fall of their bodies in time. 

Soon Vax was grinning, absurdly pleased with himself, delighted to be in Percy’s arms and clumsily waltzing at one in the morning around a filthy, more than slightly illegal garage to tinny music from a battered old radio. Percy was soon smiling too, feeling that same infectious joy, with all its imperfections. 

And he knew it wouldn’t end when the song did. Unlike before, despite everything that waited for them outside those shutters- the custody battle for his sister, the precariousness of their jobs, his family’s killers still free, living a paycheck above the poverty line- Percy knew the closeness he felt to Vax’ildan would outlast it all. This was the man he was meant to spend the rest of his life with, no matter what that life contained. 

“You know,” he said gently, “I can finish this up tomorrow. Let’s go home, hmm?” 

Vax smiled and nodded, “Sounds good, Freddy.” 

Percy shut off the radio, clearing away what needed clearing away, hiding papers and parts in the back room concealed behind the shelf. Vax stole Percy’s coat, his own outfit not suited to the temperatures, and snuggled into his boyfriend’s side as soon as he slid his arm around him. 

Percy knew the moment couldn’t last forever, when he would forget he was the supposedly dead Percival Fredrickstein von Musel Klossowski de Rolo III and just become someone who loved and was loved. When he wouldn’t feel the presence of the gun under his arm. When he could just believe that everything was okay even though he knew it wasn’t. 

Percy knew those moments wouldn’t last. But they were so sweet. 

**Author's Note:**

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